damn the sequester screams one headline. the dow closed up another 50 points yesterday to settle above 14,000 while the s&p reached a five-year high. there are danger signs ahead. earlier this month, the cbo warned the sequester will have economic growth in 2013 and result in 750,000 lost jobs, but the collective eye roll of the market have been mirrored in the empty hallways of the capitol as lawmakers continue to enjoy a week-long break. complacency is further fuelled by the deadline is malleable. they won't fall apart on sequester day of reckoning said an aide. what actually happens on march first, nothing. nothing happens. while the meet cleaver may not fall on day one, things spiral in the days and weeks ahead. today secretary of defense leon panetta notified congress of the

pentagon's plan to furlough 700,000 civilian employees, who, beginning in april, will be required to take one day off per week. in essence, a 20% pay cut. as for the current political geist, this seems to be more about political positioning rather than prevention. this afternoon, the president will sit down with local tv anchors to explain the adverse effects of the coming cuts. meanwhile, speaker john boehner is out with an op-ed in today's "wall street journal" entitled "the president is reigning against a budget crisis he created." the same budget crisis speaker boehner and 173 of his house republicans voted for back in 2011. as a reminder, this is how he described the deal at the time. >> you know, i got 98% of what i wanted. i'm pretty happy. >> what is making speaker boehner unhappy with the present situation? quote, no one should be talking about raising taxes when the government is still paying

people to play video games, giving folks free cell phones, and buying $47,000 gre cigarette-smoking machines. joining me, ezra klein of "the washington post." ezra, we need your help. actually, everybody needs your help. ezra, what's the deal with the sequester? we have, like, six different ways of reading this. on one hand, there's a chicken little stance that everything's going to end on march 1st. there are these drastic draconian cuts that are going to take place. on the other hand, there's a new theory of late, which is nothing is really going to happen on march 1st and we're going to see the next couple weeks see the republicans and democrats sit down to actually make a deal once the sequester is passed. >> well, i am happy to say, because it means we don't need to go back into is this rabbit hole. the sequester is not a cliff. it's not a cliff, curb, drop, it's not a debt ceiling, it just begins on march 1st.

it doesn't mean anything gigantic happens. the cuts will be spread out over the course of a year. you don't make them all at once, but it's bad. it's a bad way to run a government, bad way to cut spending. jared will tell you he thinks the gdp numbers will be revised up, and i think he might be right, but from what we saw, we had a shrinkage in the fourth quarter of 2012, first time in years. that's the first step towards a recession. we had very, very weak policy throughout the course of the recession, in large part because we've been cutting too much from spending, basically, from 2009. so to do a big cut of a size that nobody expected to actually go into effect, it's bad management for the macro economy, for large programs, of course, but that said and the recent notes of the market freaking out, it is not doomsday. we have a tendency in washington of wildly overhyping everything we do. this is not like the debt ceiling or even the fiscal

cliff. this is not doomsday even if it does happen. it's just stupid and we shouldn't do it. >> ezra, a couple of things here. first of all, for a long time, the stock market and the economy, as from the perspective of working people, have been at least two different things, correct? one thing, you can see the stock market doing fine. that might have a lot more to do with china than what is to happen march 1st. secondly, let's say nothing happens. the unemployment rate is stuck around 8%. this is a pretty lousy time for nothing to happen. in fact, if you look at the cbo projections, the projection with the sequester taking effect is for the unemployment rate to be 7.9% the first half of this year, 8% for the second half of this year. so, basically stuck at a place that's really very disadvantageous for so many workers. >> jared, let me interrupt this colloquy here and ask you, jared, we know that there are other looming fiscal fights, the

march 27th deadline for the continuing resolution, but the hill is reporting that the republicans, at least, want this fight to take place on the sequester. i will read you a quote, "we are going to take a stand on the sequester, said a republican senator, the sequester effects programs president obama likes and we think it's the best way to get his attention on spending." which is maybe why you're seeing so much political posturing in the days leading up to it. >> no question. the thing that, i think, bugs me and from ezra's comments, him as well, the most about this is while all these political maturations are going on, and sure, you can have great positioning and fights about this spending program and that spending program, nobody's talking about the underlying economy. as i said, the unemployment rate is stuck at 8%. that's way too high. you have millions of people in long-term unemployment, so the idea you're actually engaging in fiscal policy that's hurting an already weak economy so you can have these political fights is antithetical to what i believe policy makers' jobs are. >> it's hard to say we're making

a stand when this is a republican senator being quoted on a blind. that's not much of a stance. >> off the record. >> i think the optics of this are both sides are trying to claim a high ground here. we've seen what the president is doing with his bully pulpit all week. i also think this is a point that chuck todd made yesterday, we have heard this kind of doomsday scenario repeatedly, right? or the public has out of washington, this was ezra's point, too. i don't think the public is engaged in this fight, and until they are, it's not much evidence on march 1st they are going to become so, especially since this is going to bleed into the c.r. debate. >> howard, the always wise chris cillizza in the fix talks about the obama strategy and uses his gimlet eye to talk about it. since the collapse of the grand bargain talks in summer 2011, obama has become a far more cynical and politically successful operator.

what the president is doing with his repeated public emphasis on the sequester is laying the groundwork. >> the president has got a big megaphone, a much bigger megaphone than john boehner, eric cantor, mitch mcconnell, anyone on the republican side, and he's going to go out there on the daily basis, he's going to stand with police officers, teachers, he's going to go to the pentagon and talk with people, perhaps, going to be furloughed. they are going to furlough 700,000 people. he's going to do local tv hits today around the country, and john boehner gets a "wall street journal" editorial, which is really just speaking to his base. the president is speaking to the american people, making the case these cuts are bad for them, and the republicans really are not in a position to respond effectively. when you're in the congressional wing of the party, democrats or republicans, you're not able to effectively compete with the presidency. the republicans learned that in '94 during the government shutdown, they are going to

learn it again this time. >> president obama was just reelected. there's a sense america believes he wants to be reasonable in all of this, and, you know, i talk about the great reasonableness tour of 2012. he spent a lot of time trying to prove himself as someone who wants to negotiate. >> right. it's interesting, because it's similar and it's different to when this fight began. it's helpful to remind people this began in 2011 when there was a serious crisis. literally, on august 3rd the estimate was we were going to default on our debt and the republicans were willing to do that to the point the house didn't vote on what became this, the sequester, until july 31st and the senate didn't vote until august 2nd. on the one hand, the public isn't engaged because they've seen this movie before. the politicians were willing to go down to the wire. but on the other hand, republicans are now suffering the consequences of the deal they made, which was to exempt social programs like medicare, social security, the big-ticket things, but to allow cuts. this is the consequences of

their ideal policy, which is across-the-board, slash-and-burn budget cutting. if it takes place, they are going to suffer the consequences, because this is what they've been preaching for 30 years, cut, cut, cut, cut the government. you can't then say accept this, accept that. accept my program and district. >> you characterize this as bad management and also stupid, but my question is -- >> i could insult them some more, if you'd like. >> ezra, really, what is to say this is not just government -- this is how we govern, governance 2.0, we don't lurch crisis to crisis. i won't play the sound, but rush limbaugh makes the case this is about 2014. if these are basically a series of stopgap measures that last four months, a year, two years, is this the not new normal? >> i do think it is the new normal, but not about 2014. the best case for what we're doing right now, the thing that

makes it look best is to say there are three ways to have this fight this year, there's a debt ceiling, which we thought was going to happen -- four, actually, the fiscal cliff, which didn't happen, that would have been bad. a debt ceiling, which would have been unimaginably horrible, a hell storm of epic proportions. a continuing resolution which could lead to a government shutdown, and a sequester. the sequester is, of these four, probably the least damaging to the economy, the least disruptive, least freakout to the market. there's an advantage to the fact boehner has moved his people to have a fight on the sequester. obama and him are going to have a fight on the sequester and hopefully we'll figure this out before we get to the debt ceiling or something we can't get back out of. there is a sense with a harm mitigation strategy being attempted by john boehner here to try to get his people focused on something, where even if it goes wrong and there's no deal, we don't crash the global economy as a consequence. >> it reminds me of the late

1800s and 1900s when leeching was the preferred medical treatment, bleed it out, bleed it out. that's effectively the strategy taken, vis a vis legislating. >> i don't think anybody thinks what we're doing works. >> worse than leeching, ezra klein is on the record. not quite a hell storm, but worse than leaching. >> technical way of grading it. >> thank you, as always, ezra. >> thank you. coming up, a level-headed, level-headed john mccain talks immigration in arizona, but will the senator bring that reasonableness back to washington? we'll discuss the border between reform and heartbreak next on "now." oh this is lame, investors could lose tens of thousands of dollars

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why didn't the army go down there and stop them? because the only thing that stops them, i'm afraid to say and it's too damn bad, but is a gun. that's all that will stop them. >> you got jose today, pepe tomorrow. >> you're a senator with the federal government, and you're doing nothing about it. you said build a dang fence, where's the fence? >> senator john mccain faced a raucous town hall in phoenix yesterday as audience members derided his support for immigration reform, but mccain stuck to his guns, offering a practical and compassionate response. even comparing his own transgressions to those of illegal immigrants. >> they have to pay the fine, get in line. all of us, from time to time, i think, with rare exception unfortunately, have broken the

law. mine was while driving an automobile at an excessive speed. i paid a fine. they mow our lawns, they care for our babies. you want to round up 11 million people and send them bk to their country? you're not going to do that. >> mccain's bout of totally sane behavior comes on the heels of white house outrage to gop leadership. yesterday, president obama placed calls to senators mccain, graham, and rubio to discuss immigration. according to a spokesman for senator rubio, the senator told the president that he feels good about the ongoing negotiations in the senate and is hopeful the final product is something that can pass the senate with strong bipartisan support. compared to rubio's statement four days earlier calling the president's proposals halfbaked, seriously flawed, and dead on arrival, is it possible the country is witnessing a return of that most jurassic of animals, bipartisanship? howard, i watch this footage of john mccain and wanted to get up doing, like, a slow golf clap. give it up to the man.

he defended those who are here as undocumented workers who care for our children. he said, you can't deport people who have been in this country for 40 or 50 years. it was downright sane. >> that's the john mccain we know and love, right? disappeared for a little while. >> he's been in and out of the public eye lately. >> two things have happened with the election, vis a vis immigration, one the his panic vote walked away from them. they know that, how they get latinos back in the fold or at least do better. that's a big part of it. the second is the business wing of the republican party, the ceos, people who work on wall street, people who fund these campaigns very much want immigration reform, because they see it as an economic boon for the country. my boss, mayor bloomberg, is working with rupert murdoch, very unlikely bedfellows, on this issue. rupert murdoch believes we need to liberalize our immigration.

they recognize it's good for our economy if we allow more immigrants in. so, both the factors, the she lacking they took and a wing wants this, is moving in the direction of getting something done. >> i wonder if you can go back and say those same things in washington. i'm still unclear as to how accepting parts of the republican party are going to be. a, john mccain has constituents that are very angry about this, right? and then there is marco rubio, who on saturday calls the president's plans half baked and, you know, dead on arrival, when in reality, there's a lot the president's plan had in common with rubio's proposals, from what we understand them. >> what happened over the weekend was an ugly part of politicking. on one side, we're supposed to let bipartisan discussions go forward, the president did actually start calling some republican senators. the flip side was the sense that rubio could be using that leaked

proposal as a way to blow up any kind of a deal. i don't actually think that is the case. i think republicans, as howard said, want this to get done for a variety of reasons. more because of the shellacking last cycle, then the pro-business side pushing it that way. i think that's been happening for a while. i think, frankly, far more than gun control, immigration has a far more possibility of getting done in d.c. than anything else. >> jared, eugene robinson writes, "the president's proposal is not much different from what rubio is talking about, but the republicans can slam obama's plan as some kind of kenyan-socialist inspired abbey case of sovereignty while the senate works towards bipartisan consensus, which looks suspiciously like what

just happened." >> i think although you talk about republicans want this, okay, so there's republicans and there's people who vote for republicans, and they are not exactly the same thing right now, as you just saw from that audience. the other thing i saw in that clip is a symptom of the fact we don't have comprehensive immigration reform. border states are under tremendous pressures. there's all kinds of sick things that happens when the federal government has a huge issue like this. that's the symptom we're seeing. it's all the more important we try to kind of put that noise aside and pursue this in a bipartisan way, and i agree with what everyone said, the stars appear to be uniquely aligned to move this legislation, and ultimately, it will be very helpful to the kind of dynamics you heard there. >> i don't want to be pouring cold water on this moment of potential bipartisanship, but, i mean, i think the problem is there is a lot of talking about these grand themes about who we are as americans and, you know,

it is important and good to actualize and realize that, but ti at the same time, the thing that struck a chord with the republicans is eight years to the path to citizenship. once you put actual years on the table, that's the problem. eight years, is that going to give marco rubio enough cover to propose ten years to citizenship? do you have to be here for 20 years? this is the problem with these negotiations, once you have figures, there starts to be fraying at the edges. >> look, at the end of the day, there are people in the base, we saw some in the audience at mccain's town hall that want the people put on buses and sent back to mexico, period. they think all immigrants came from mexico, and let's go back to marco rubio for a minute, florida's not a border state, but before rubio ran for the united states senate, in order to get with the tea party, which we claim he's their darling, but he had to support sb-1070 in arizona, he had to oppose sonya sotomayor, which puts him to the

right of every mainstream republican. his policy was against the dream act. he was opposed to that. marco rubio is to the right of many republicans on immigration. that's how he got to where he is now. he's got to look like he's rejecting the president's deal as dead on arrival and coming up with his own, which is harsh and cruel on border control. >> democrats, it's almost like it's gotten to the point now, howard, democrats would say, fine, slap around the president and his proposal, just get somethingdone. >> sometimes there are back-channel choreography around some of this. somebody picks up a phone, look, i have to blast you for this, it will help me cut a deal later on for you. i don't know if those conversations are going on, but you have to imagine rubio is thinking that's what he needs to do to give him a space to come to a deal with the president down the road. >> don't jeopardize your rightward flank, marco rubio, and say you accept the president's phone calls. that will ruin you.

>> there was about a three-day period where the press was arguing whether rubio and the president were actually even talking with each other. we're talking with the rubio staff, no, they are not. >> we talked to rubio's people, no, no, we have not been talking to the white house. >> i think howard is basically right in the sense that you've got to show your tea party base that you're fighting about this and you're not embracing the president, where at the same time you have to find a narrow path to the legislature. >> also you have to realize republicans understand there's a consequence they'll pay with their base if this happens. for the marginal amount of improvement they make with hispanics, there are some of their home base it's going to stay home that are not going to support this. >> politically, isn't immigration reform, broadly speaking, a winner for the republican party? >> the republican -- >> i think it could be, especially if you listen to kathleen parker, who says, "rhino hunting, a political

sport, has become a suicide mission. there are so many rhinos wandering the barren plains that banded together they might even form a critical mass." maybe this is the thing that gets the rhino in a herd. >> that does sound like kenya a little bit. >> you have seen this transition a bit. one of the popular names after the election is obama changed the electorate. you've seen a lot of republican analysts saying the electorate has changed. that's the difference here. to the extent immigration reform can happen, it's about to that reality, and i think you're starting to see it. >> rhinos, come out, come out, wherever you are. it's been described as the next frontier for civil rights. after the break, we look at neuro diversity and one school making inclusion a part of the lesson plan. tax refund time is here. i'm with malcom and kelly who are looking for a great new smartphone. you think you can find one at walmart? maybe. let's go see. alright. let him tell you about sprint.

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the individuals with disabilities education act of 1975 declared that to improve learning for children with developmental disabilities, schools had to ensure access to the general education curriculum in the regular classroom. nearly 40 years later, while one in every 88 children is born on the autism spectrum, students with learning disabilities are still struggling to be included. in many schools, even if students spend part of the day with their peers, they are regularly pulled out of class. one school in new york is making the idea of full inclusion a reality and alongside it, teaching lessons of compassion and self empowerment. >> i am doing a paper on jfk, so he's definitely one of my heros. >> every year, the 104 students at the ideal school in manhattan create their very own civil rights museum. >> this bulletin board supports

our civil rights museum. >> they are at the forefront of the fight for a more equitable society. >> that is not a nice sun. >> i think they love hearing about people who struggled and then also overcame something. >> many of the students are overcoming their own challenges. the founding principles of the school are based on inclusion and diversity. children with different levels of neurological ability, who may have autism, downs syndrome, or a physical ability. >> when we talk about inclusion, what we're talking about is diversity. that's the essence of the entire school. that's the philosophy that underlying everything we do. >> audra zuckerman is the co-founder of the school. she has a seventh grader with down syndrome. >> i think one of the things they do really well here is they speak about injustice. they teach the kids about

situations in history or contemporary situations where people are not treated fairly or differently because of their differences. >> with lessons tailored to each students' level of learning, teachers focus on equality and diversity. >> what struck me is here the students are learning about robin island, nelson mandela, martin luther king. >> we believe every single child is going to change the world, and that's our philosophy, and if that's our philosophy, we need to give examples of people who have changed the world. >> ideal's curriculum and philosophy is to foster compassion. >> we have, like, a life skills class on fridays. one of my goals was to use what i learned here to not fight with my brothers, my sister. >> sparked by the tragic shootings in tucson, aurora, and newtown, a national dialogue is under way about education and mental health.

ideal's model offers students a kind of social education. >> if i'm respecting you and who you are as a learner, then a child with downsyndrome in my class, that's a person to me, my friend, not a kid with downs syndrome. >> the school encourages students to seek out those who are different, rather than stigmatize them. >> they are curious when someone looks different, talks different, but at least here they can ask those questions. >> as the nation tries to make our society more just, the ideals school raises profound questions about how we look at differences and how we respond. >> i think that just because someone's smaller or different than you, then you shouldn't be mean to them. >> do you ever get involved if you see something like that happening? >> maybe not physically, but i definitely try to be an upstander instead of a bystan r bystander. >> the ideals school is private

but made financial aid a key part of their mission to make sure it remains diverse in all senses of the word. dr. richard rosenthal joins us now. thanks for coming on. >> thank you. >> richard, how important is it for children with differences, neurological differences, to have an education that is both social and academic? >> well, the reality is that kids with disabilities are kids. if you're going to have a floor, everybody deserves, in a sense, the opportunity to develop themselves as far as they can go. this school is really quite a remarkable and somewhat unique in the fact that it offers the diversity sort of in your face, and i love the focus on compassion, because what that does is it reduces interpersonal distance and it allows people to really be friends, to connect, to be real with one another rather than object fiing someone as someone with a disability and not so much.

it really fosters a much more civil approach and in doing so lays the foundation where people can actually move towards their objectives in terms of their best emotional and intellectual growth. >> howard, seer and knower of all things new york, "the new york times" in september of 2011 talked about autism and i'll quote from the article, "some advocates of neurodiversity call this the next civil rights frontier. society, they say, stands to benefit from accepting people whose brains work differently." >> well, the principles behind a public education that we've always claimed to in this country is every kid should be able to go to school, get an education, and rise to their god-given promise. we excluded lots of people over the years from schools. we are slowly making progress in this arena, and kids who otherwise would have been shunted off to special schools in different buildings are now being in the same buildings as

other kids and even in the same classrooms. we are not as far along as we would like to be towards that goal, but much farther than we were ten years ago, certainly, 20 years ago, and i expect in ten years, 20 years, you will have this kind of full integration in most of our classrooms. >> that's happening in the public schools in new york. this is a private school, obviously, but introducing neurodiversity. >> depending on the condition of the kid or the kids' abilities or talents, you have kids in the classrooms for part of the day and another part of the day they'll go for some tutoring or other services. that's been the way that the education system has worked for a long time. there's always been opportunities for some kids to come out of the classroom and get some additional assistance. this is the next civil rights movement. >> there's a lot to discuss on this topic, but we have to take a break. when we come back, 32 years after president reagan appealed the mental health systems act, states are struggling to find

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earlier this month in a usa today op-ed, health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius issued a call to bring mental illness out of the shadows. her plea did not exaggerate the severity of the problem. the latest report from the kaiser commission found a staggering 60% of americans and 70% of children with mental illness are not being treated. richard, that is a staggering statistic. we have been talking a lot about mental health in this country in the wake of newtown, but when it actually comes to putting one's money where one's mouth is, we look at resources for mental health across the country, and they are not great. why is that? >> well, national survey on drug use in health that comes out of the substance abuse and mental health services administration 2011 data showed that of the people who, for example, for substance use disorders, wanted to get treatment, 45% of those folks couldn't get treatment

because they couldn't afford it, and that includes those with insurance and still could not afford that treatment. >> we do know the affordable care act, i think, is adding several millions of dollars to mental health services, but overall state mental health spending from 2009 to 2012, which is only a three-year period, is down 12%. >> of course, it is, because they have no voice, right? we think about constituencies with a political voice. who's the group that's least likely to be able to support itself and advocate for itself? it's people with severe mental illnesses, substance use disorders, et cetera. developmental disabilities. >> to some degree, it's the way we talk about mental illness in this country, whether or not it's severe mental illness or, you know, there's, obviously, a spectrum in terms of sociability and so forth. but at the end of the day, we showed that video from the ideals school, the notion of compassion and empathy. that's almost the most powerful takeaway from the school is the idea you can have an entire

generation reared on the idea these people are no different. having asperger's is no different than being left handed. >> which is if it is practiced consistently and effectively is fantastic. the problem is, the budget cuts are a big, big issue. as a parent with two kids who at various points needed assistance, the availability of therapy was much greater several years ago. in every state, it has really come down a lot. with the way we talk about mental illness tends to be, as you said, a very broad umbrella. i'm loathed to talk about adam lanza or sort of speculate on his condition, because there is no way and his mother can't speak to his history now, but i do think it's very important when you are dealing with mental illness to not use the word mental illness repeatedly when you're talking about kids with asburgers or the autism spectrum. that becomes stigmatizing and a big part of the education process in this country.

>> when we talk -- also on that note, as maggie mentions, as far as newtown, the n.i.h. reports less than 5% of violent crimes are committed by individuals with mental illness, but there is a question of how we embrace people different than us, joy, and we talk about this being the next civil rights frontier. that's a powerful thesis to be working from, we should be pushing for equality, and i think that means engaging people. but people who don't have asburger's and people who do have asperger's. >> look, there are already children with developmental disabilities and mental illness of various kinds and they are already mainstreamed in our classrooms and schools. they are undiagnosed, untreated, but they are already there. >> feeling isolated. >> stigmatized, bullied, and we look at the pathologies in poor communities with more homicide, more suicide, kids that can't pass standardized tests. i bet if you did some care and

found origins of problems that emanate from the school, community, on and on, have to do with untreated, undiagnosed mental illness and people who just need care. >> in any year if you look at folks over the age of 18, any year 11% of the population have an active disorder. three most prevalent classes of mental disorders in the united states. millions and millions and millions of people, and the truth of the matter is, there isn't proper screening because this is in the closet, because mental illness is still stigmatized, because we think about superstitious and hocus-pocus kinds of ways to get things out on the table and get dealt with early on. as i've often told people, if you try to sail your boat to great britain and are leaving new york harbor, it takes less effort to course correct when you're off new york harbor than off the coast of africa. >> it's worth noting, howard,

the president has launched an effort to map the human brain this week, and, of course, that is getting decried on some corners as not a great use of our resources, but when you think about where we've come since we've begun mapping the human genome, pardon the pun, but seems a no-brainer and something we should be dedicating resources to. >> i don't know why we wouldn't spend money to find more about our minds and bodies. >> i would also say, we have to go, but richard, we mention the words compassion and empathy and how much would those two qualities change the current political debate? >> absolutely. >> if people could be more empathetic and sympathetic. >> being able to stand in someone else's shoes would change a lot. >> we have to leave it there, but our thanks to dr. richard rosenthal. great to have you on the show. >> thank you. coming up, hacked. cyber criminals are scaling corporate fire walls.

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the collective result of these kinds of attacks could be a cyber pearl harbor. an attack that would cause physical destruction and the loss of life. an attack that would paralyze

and shock the nation. and create a new profound sense of vulnerability. >> that was defense secretary leon panetta back in october sending out a distress issue on the calamitous effects of cyber terrorism. panetta called this a pre 9/11 moment. in the past year, coca-cola, apple, facebook, twitter, google, bank of america, burger king, "the new york times," jpmorgan chase, "the wall street journal," and the federal reserve have all been hacked. most of the recent cyber attacks can be traced back to a chinese military unit in shanghai. in an effort to more aggressi aggressively combat this cyber espionage, president obama signed an executive order last week to reduce risk, but the issue of cyber security also raises a host of questions involving cyber liberties.

saying it didn't adequately protect individual privacy. critics argue the vague language would allow the government to obtain information without obtaining a warrant. today, the house introduced that very same bill. howard, as a deputy mayor of new york city, the question of keeping the city safe is something you deal with on a daily basis. this is a really interesting and brave new arena that we have sort of yet to really get our minds and arms around in terms of national security. >> well, all of our essential infrastructure in the city, from water, to street lights, to sewage, to elevators, everything you can think of runs on computers somewhere. somewhere there is a computer running it, and if there was a government or some other non-governmental entity that had the ability to hack into some of those systems to, you know, flood our streets, to shut off

the electric grid, there would be chaos, and so this is an enormously serious problem. it's not just about hacking a website and spoofing the website. this is about how we go about our daily lives, and i hope, i don't know, i hope that the federal government is taking this as seriously as they need to, because, and you hear this analogy a lot, compared to pearl harbor, you could be looking at the next pearl harbor. one day you could wake up and the electric grid would be down. the water would stop running. >> not just inconvenience, potential loss of life here. >> real loss of life. when we lost the electric grid during sandy, not the grid, but lost electricity during sandy, that was the impetus for so many of the problems that we faced over the next several days. if you have electricity, you can do an awful lot. if you do not in this day and age, there's very little you can do. >> jared, to the china piece of this, it's a complicated dance we must do with china on a number of issues, human rights being one, this being another.

they own $1.2 or $1.3 trillion of our debt, how do you have a tough line with the chinese on something like this, given our economic ties? >> well, historically you do it through diplomacy. the chinese have actually, at least in areas of currency, the debt, some of the issues you've raised, have been fairly responsive when we've gone over and talked to them and insisted they stop suppressing the value of their currency to have an export advantage over us. they tend to let the thing float after we nudge them about that. >> more than nudge, right? there's been a lot of talk about chinese currency manipulation. >> at least in the economic arena, and i agree with howard, there are more issues in play here, but the kind of behind the scenes diplomatic associations have been more effective. that said, what i see going on here is up a notch than i think anybody expected.

the extent to which these hackers are infiltrating private organizations and corporations, i expect that governments are all doing this, by the way, but i think they are doing it government-to-government. once you start going into the level of private organizations, into the federal reserve, into apple, i think, you mentioned in your list, it really does, i think it really does demand very serious pushback. >> yeah, 115 companies in the u.s. were hacked, including apple, as you point out, which rarely ever sort of announces it's been hacked, given macs are supposed to be hack-proof. but it is a huge, huge threat to our economy and our livelihoods. a senior defense official said, in the cold war we were focused around the command centers in moscow, it's fair to say we worry as much about the computer servers in shanghai. we have to leave it there. >> happy note.

>> yeah, our macs are not safe. among other things. thank you to my panel today, howard, joy, maggie, and jared. that is all for "now." i'll see you back here tomorrow at noon eastern, 9:00 pacific. until then, you can find us at facebook.com/nowwithalex. "andrea mitchell reports" is next.

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